This capital city of South China's Guangdong Province has officially launched the market development program for the 2010 Asian Games, sources with the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC) said.

"The market program will be jointly implemented by the GAGOC and designated agencies, in a bid to better tap the commercial market here in the host city and around Asia as well," said Fang Da'er, deputy director of the GAGOC Market Development Department.
According to Fang, the Japan-based Dentsu Inc, which has lot of experience in serving the previous Asian Games and other big international sports events, has been selected this time as the official market agent for the Guangzhou Asian Games.

"We will soon release the details of a sponsorship program, and in the second half of this year, we will also announce the first group of partners and the licensed Asian Games mascot products," Fang told a press conference last week.

The Asian Games market development program mainly involves issues regarding sponsorship sales and services, franchising (including postal products, commemorative coins and other souvenirs), ticketing and community donations, Fang said.

He said all commercial products related to the games' mascot would bear more characteristics of Guangzhou, one of the economic and trade centers in South China.

"So far, we have received many domestic and overseas calls asking for donations to the games. We will soon open a special hotline to deal with such issues," Fang said.

Masa Oshita, a project manager of the International Sports Department of the Dentsu Inc, said: "The robust economic development and nice commercial environment in Guangzhou will, by all means, help the host city to attract more international and domestic enterprises to participate in the games."

Liu Jiangnan, director of the Guangzhou Sports Bureau, was also confident about the potential market for the games.

"People in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao as well, have strong consumption capabilities, helping to lead to a promising market development for the games," Liu said in an interview with China Daily.

Liu also attributed the games' promising market to the large population in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region and sound development in sectors of finance, information and tourism.

"Guangzhou has more than 10 million people and the PRD region, including Hong Kong and Macao, boasts many well-off people. The large population will push forward commercial market development of the games," Liu said.

"I think big domestic and international enterprise will benefit a lot from the games since Guangzhou has already developed a sound market system in several sectors, including finance, information and tourism," Liu added.

Editor: Yan